Using the FileMaker Tomcat Server

Title

Using the FileMaker Tomcat Server

Your post

After installing 360 Works' SuperContainer on our FileMaker Server 9 (Advanced) box, it dawned upon me that it was possible to use the "built in" Tomcat server to serve Java server pages or appletts. I was wondering if there is a recomended procedure for doing this.

I actually tried dumping a WAR file in the \FileMaker Server\Web Publishing\publishing-engine\cwpe-tomcat\bin directory and restarted the server. The WAR was unpacked successfully but I am not sure how to access this now (port number and path). Also, the installation of SuperContainer configuration has caused the package to be served on port 80. Does anyone have any advice on how this was done? Sorry, I don't have much experience with Tomcat and JSP.

Hi Kiental - you won't be able to get it to work simply by dropping something into the webapps folder in the Tomcat that comes with FileMaker, because unfortunately FileMaker ships Tomcat with http support disabled: there's a line in server.xml enabling http traffic on port 8080, which is the standard config, but FileMaker comments that line out to disable it.

One way you could solve this, if you want to run on port 8080, is by finding that line in server.xml and uncommenting it. Then you could access any Java servlet on port 8080 if it's in the webapps folder. This is the way we used to do it with SuperContainer 1.

The way we do it with SuperContainer 2 is by adding a JkMount directive to map the /SuperContainer context path to our application. This is done by the installer, and it uses the AJP connector to directly proxy from Apache/IIS to Tomcat without HTTP. It's a little nicer because it runs on port 80, and since it's going through Apache/IIS, you can use this with SSL encryption on port 443 with no changes to the JkMount.

I didn't write the installer (that was Val Avksentyev), so I don't know exactly which file this is configured in, but if you'd like to post the question on our SuperContainer support forum (http://fmforums.com/forum/showforum.php?fid/222/), I'll make sure that Val sees your question.